Articles | Observations & Experiences (416)

Rediscovering Vatican II: Ecumenism and Interreligious Dialogue

Sydney, Australia
20 October, 2005

It is a great pleasure and honour to send this message to the Sydney special celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the Promulgation of Nostra Aetate. I don’t think it is hyperbole to say that this is the most dramatic transformation in the course of human history that we are celebrating. Remember that the way the Jewish people had been traditionally presented within the normative Christian tradition was as a people cursed and condemned to wander until they would recognise the true dispensation. Therefore, whatever suffering that was incurred was more or less to be expected, and as a correlation of this there was a demonisation of the people that facilitated some of the most terrible things in European history and, maybe, indeed even in world history.

To have gone from a state of seeing a people rejected and then to categorically refute that as the historic Nostra Aetate did and to affirm that God’s covenant with the Jewish people is an eternal covenant, never broken and never to be broken, was in itself a remarkable change, a historic turnabout. To have advanced from that particular point to where Pope John Paul II of blessed memory addresses the Jewish community as a dearly beloved elder brother of the Church of the original covenant never broken and never to be broken, is to take this transformation to its ultimate logical conclusion and to completely repudiate that past negative teaching of contempt as we refer to it, and to affirm this special remarkable relationship between the Church and the Jewish people.

It was Nostra Aetate that ushered in this transformation in teaching and in preaching and in relation to the Jewish communities and the Catholic neighbours around the world. There was always however a lingering suspicion in Jewish minds that if there wasn’t an establishment of full relations between the Holy See and the State of Israel as to how totally sincere this new transformation, this new relationship was. Leaders of the Church were at pains to point out that the issue of the delay in the establishment of relations with the State of Israel had to do with political circumstances and fear for the well being of Christian communities and interests within the Arab world. But the proof of that was of course in 1993 when the bilateral commission between the State of Israel and the Holy See of which I was privileged to be a part, concluded this historic agreement known as the Fundamental Agreement, between the Holy See and the State of Israel establishing full relations between the two and making it perfectly clear in the preamble of that document that this took place within the context of that historic transformation in Catholic Jewish relations.

The Fundamental Agreement and the establishment of full bilateral relations between the Holy See and the State of Israel was important not only in terms of confirming this transformation and of significance in and of itself, but also because it facilitated arguably the most important symbolic visual event in this transformation.

Part of the greatness of the late John Paul II was in his understanding of the power of visual images, understanding that these are more impactful today than a hundred documents, maybe even more documents, no matter how wonderful they may be. And there were special moments in his Pontificate that summed up and personified that transformation.

One was the historic visit to the Synagogue in 1986 in Rome where he used the language that I referred to before, calling the Jewish people the dearly beloved elder brothers of the Church. The world saw that this new relationship was a reality, a transformed relationship between the Church and the Jewish community.

But in many respects the visit of the Pope to Israel, the Holy Land, in the year 2000, substantially facilitated by that diplomatic accord, itself the fruits of Nostra Aetate, facilitated images of enormous power, especially in Israel where there might have been, as I say theretofore, some suspicion as to how totally sincere this transformation was. For people to see the Pope in tearful solidarity with Jewish suffering at Yad Vashem, to see him standing in respect for Jewish tradition at the Kotel (the Western Wall) and putting there the text of a prayer he had composed for his convened liturgy of repentance at St. Peter’s a few weeks earlier asking God’s forgiveness for sins committed by Christians against Jews down the ages, had an enormous impact upon Israeli society, upon Jewish society within Israel and I would say Jewish society throughout the world and perhaps even throughout Christian society as well. The full accord to Israel’s elected officials at the State reception, at the President’s residence and on the Pope’s departure left a powerful visual emphasis of how totally sincere and genuine this transformation was.

That Pope John Paul II’s successor, Pope Benedict XVI, has affirmed this commitment shows this is anyway not something that is dependent upon individuals. It is now enshrined in the very fabric of the Church. It is something to truly celebrate, both because it impacts upon the lives of Catholics and Jews everywhere, but because it is truly this historic transformation from what had been a tragic misrepresentation, a tragic demonisation of the Jewish community on the part of its daughter faith to a new found relationship based on mutual respect.

This places many special responsibilities upon us both in terms of our relationship and for the world. As the late Pope John Paul II put it, as children of Abraham we are called to be a blessing to humankind. In order to be so we must first be a blessing to one another.